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Yes, almost certainly. They wouldn't have had to become a member back then. All that was needed was a realistic path to membership. Instead, some influential E
by matt4077 9y ago
Yes, almost certainly. They wouldn't have had to become a member back then. All that was needed was a realistic path to membership.
Instead, some influential EU leaders basically said "It's never going to happen", sometimes under pressure from their countries' right wing. Not because Turkey was economically too far behind, or because of concerns with the rule of law, but simply because a sizeable portion of EU populations objected to non-christians becoming part of the EU.
Nobody knows what could have been, and the current situation shows that turkish democracy was rather weak all along. But it's important to remember that Erdogan started out as a moderate, who sought nothing more than approval from the EU, and only turned to the dark side after repeatedly being humiliated. It's possibly one of largest mistakes made in recent history.
- enimodas 9y agoWhy should they accept a country that's not in Europe for 95% of its landmass? Not to mention the huge cultural gap.
- eru 9y agoThe borders of Europe the continent are arbitrary. Cultural gap between eg members Sweden and Italy is probably bigger than between member Greece and Turkey?
- tormeh 9y agoI've heard some Turks saying that the people living in Istanbul and western Turkey are basically Greek. Land has changed hands between Turkey and Greece many times and the people there often stayed put.
- eru 9y agoOf course, there's lots of animosity between them because of that shared history. So don't mention the similarities to their face, unless you know them well. Cuisine in western Turkey and Greece is basically the same, too.
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y agoThe biggest mistake of the EU has been accepting too many countries in, not too few. For an Europeanist it's desperating to see how the UK (now to be gone) and Eastern European countries have always blocked policies of further integration. If Turkey were in and with veto power, the EU would be able to do practically nothing, as the cultural and political differences are huge. The EU would probably be on the verge of breaking up now, or would have already broken up at the Greek crisis. And the story of the "moderate" Erdogan turning an authoritarian dictator after being "humiliated" sounds extremely naive to me. The things he is doing are not the work of a humiliated moderate. They are the work of an authoritarian for whom the alleged humiliation was a very convenient excuse to stop pretending to be a moderate.
- eru 9y agoDepends on where you put your counterfactuals. It is true that once countries are in the EU, the EU has almost no leverage. That happened with Bulgaria and Rumania. If you imagine a world where Turkey was in the EU, you might as well through in some mechanisms for more leverage on existing members?